My Saving Grace
by odairrieres
Summary: A fallen angel is forced to face his humanity, and finds that Heaven's doors look a lot like Dean Winchester's arms, freckles and all. Takes place after 5.21, "Two Minutes to Midnight"
1. Chapter 1

_And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day— just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire. _– Jude 1:6-7

"Useless." Castiel was starting to associate that word with being human, along with: exasperating, slow, tedious, repulsive, and absolutely crappy. He was incapable of grasping how they managed, how Dean and Sam and Bobby dealt with constantly having to stop what they were doing to ingest food, to sleep and, the most disturbing of the three, to discharge in restrooms. An angel on the toilet was the most interesting and current topic of discussion in the Winchester household, in between the constant Apocalypse banter. It lightened the mood for the boys to freely announce, safe from the threat of being smitten, ever so gracelessly how Castiel was about to "bestow the toilet with holy water" or "holy shit".

It didn't matter that he wasn't even an angel anymore.

He kicked a spare tire from beside a skeletal car at the edge of Bobby's lot, felt the sharp pain it sent up his foot with disdain, and watched the wheel fumble its way down the dirt path before toppling over with a dull "thump". He dropped the beer bottle in his hand, observed its short fall, and let it clank onto the ground. He was almost tempted to jump from one of the many piled cars, just to find out what sound he'd make when he fell. Again.

It had been four days since he'd woken up in a hospital with a sharp pain in his side and a dull throb in his head Dean told him was "the start of a beautiful human experience, Cas. It's a headache, you'll learn to love it". That had been the only real ringing alarm to notify him that he'd fallen, fired and discarded from Heaven. A headache, a hollow pit in his stomach they'd said was hunger, but he wasn't so sure, and a peculiar lightness to his shoulders and back as if his wings had simply evaporated into thin air. And perhaps they had, along with his grace. Without those wings, that grace, he'd had to walk out of a hospital, and get back to Dean and the others by human transport.

It had been one of the most humiliating experiences of his long life.

"_Sir," the grating voice came through the hole in the glass, covered by a metal, matted plate punctured through with holes. It seemed to amplify the voice, and when Castiel tore his gaze away from the rapidly changing list of destinations and glanced through the glass, he saw the enlarged woman attached to that voice. She sat with a displeased look to her face that creased the rolls of skin about her mouth and brow. "Sir, cash or credit?"_

_Castiel frowned in agitation with his hands fidgeting at his sides, and a burning between his legs he didn't understand and had been fighting off since the plane from Delacroix to Sioux Falls. Now that he was out of the cash Bobby had wired him and in need of transport, yet again, to Davenport to meet up with Dean and Sam, he had no idea how he was going to manage this._

"_I don't have much credit anymore, but I don't see how that relates to money," he answered, puzzled. The woman sighed and jabbed a finger at the picture on the glass displaying different cards ranging from Mastercard to VISA. He remembered seeing something resembling that in Jimmy's wallet once. Maybe they still worked._

"_If you don't have one of these, you don't have a bus ride out of here, sir," she muttered impatiently. _

_Nodding, he reached into the pockets of Jimmy's trench coat, and felt the smooth leather wallet. He pulled it out, wrestled with the material that felt skin-tight against the array of cards inside, stabbed his thumb on the corner of the plastic. Once he'd fought with it and won, he pulled out a card and pressed it against the window._

"_Credit," he announced._

"_Congratulations, now can you pass it through the slot?" The woman sighed. Castiel's gaze fell down, spotted the opening in the glass, felt a rush of blood sprawl throughout his face._

"_Right," he muttered as he shoved it through the slot. The lady took the card and swiped it through a machine, punched keys and the whirring of another machine produced a ticket, his ticket. She slid it through the slot along with his credit, and he was on his way._

"_What a lovely family you have," a voice from behind jolted Castiel as he tried to put the credit back into the wallet. When he turned, he picked up on a flash of vibrant ginger hair and, beneath it, an old lady with a sealed, toothless smile._

_Her eyes were flickering between him and the wallet. Glancing down, Castiel's eyes fell on the picture Jimmy kept of his wife and daughter. He felt that hollowness again, and knew at once it wasn't hunger._

"_I don't have a family anymore," he admitted solemnly, and the old lady's toothless smile turned into an equally toothless frown._

"_That's a shame, you being so young." She shook her head and placed a slightly shaking hand on his as he closed the wallet, putting it in his pocket again. "Divorce?"_

_He smiled, though it didn't reach his eyes. "Disowned."_

"_Well I never. You don't look like the kind," she scoffed, though her hand fell from his and returned to her baggage. "Where are you off to, sweetie?"_

"_Davenport, Iowa. Bus two." He read off the ticket in his hand._

"_And so am I. Mind helping out with my suitcases?" She rushed to the point, already shoving one towards him. And she was shuffling past him, leaving him with five bags and that burn between his legs, and a soreness in his arms when he lifted all the baggage._

_When they sat down on the bus, luggage tucked away, she bombarded him with more questions he couldn't answer._

"_Where do you come from?" _

_Heaven, but Dean had already warned him over the phone about this: "Cas, dude, you gotta learn how to lie. No more of that angel crap where you have to be honest all the time. You're human now and some of the shit you say is certifiable, and I don't need you being shoved into another hospital."_

"_Lawrence, Kansas." He shuffled in his seat, crossing his legs past the discomfort of lying._

"_Hmph, never heard of it. What're you heading off to Iowa for?"_

_To try and stop the apocalypse, even if I'm not of any use. Seeing as I am not an angel of the lord, anymore._

"_To visit friends." More shuffling._

"_Aw, how sweet. Good friends?" At least now he didn't have to lie, and the bus was starting to move. He wondered how long this was going to take. He was also wishing he was still an angel, if only to transport himself away from this woman._

"_Very," he said. More shuffling. His nether region was on fire._

"_My boy, there is a restroom here, you know. It's probably not the nicest, but it's there in the back," the old woman leaned over to whisper, an amused spark in her eyes. Castiel frowned._

_The bathroom. Right, he needed to use the bathroom._

_It took him a while to balance himself on the moving bus, to maneuver around bulging suitcases that stuck out into the walkway and children that wouldn't stay seated, but he managed to get to the end of the bus were a small corner was sectioned off as a small room, with a door that said "VACANT" in green, bold letters._

_When he opened the door, however, he realized it was occupied by at least two cockroaches._

_Trying to urinate was yet another feat he had to master. And yet again he found himself despising the human body, but more specifically the male one._

"_Aim straight, cowboy," he could imagine Dean saying from behind the door with a hearty laugh._

_And he tried, and then there was a bump in the road that had him flailing for the wall and bodily fluids running anywhere but the toilet._

"_Naturally," Castiel complained, planting his forehead against the wall. _

_There was a knock on the door._

"_I have a little girl out here that needs to use the potty so can you hurry up in there?"_

_After cleaning up his mess, rushing from the bathroom with a blush and his zipper down as one passenger delightedly told him, the old woman continued to ask discomforting questions about a human life Castiel didn't have until just now._

And there was one question that stuck with him, despite how he tried to shake it out of his mind.

He played with gravity; he climbed atop a car roof, teetered his feet off the edge. He felt the teasing tug of the rusted dirt beneath him. It was playful now, at a short distance, but he wondered how it would have felt to fall from Heaven and plummet down to Earth. A prolonged descent. That was how he imagined a fall from grace to feel. And, all the way down, he would experience the feathers being torn from his bones until his wings were left bare and useless against the fierce pull. He imagined a searing pain, millions of needles digging into his back only to swell into knives that would cut at his grace, severing it from his celestial body with excruciating accuracy until none of it was left in him and he was sliced into pieces, tumbling downwards until he crashed with a splat on the asphalt with no one around to pick him up.

Falling was fear, fear of losing himself and everything he fought so hard to keep. But, apparently, that fear had exaggerated reality.

Castiel jumped down from the car and allowed the sting of the landing to rise from his heel and ankles to his calves and knees, let it ripple through him, tried to imagine that times a thousand, a million and failed.

He wanted to feel that pain, because that would have taken his mind off the normalcy of his human body. It would have been a reminder of what he had been. All he had now was his blade, and even that was pretty much pointless.

_Caaas_, a familiar gruff call beckoned to him, _rise and shine wherever the hell you are, angel face, and get over to Bobby's. _

Castiel flinched at the voice in his head. Ah, yes, he had that as a reminder, a painful one at that. What was the point of a prayer, if he couldn't answer them?

It was as if small bits of him were trickling off. His wings and indestructibility, endurance, and the remaining thread to Heaven was this. He'd already tried kicking into his brothers and sisters frequencies, and they were gone. For once, besides the occasional call from Dean and sometimes Sam, it was silent in his mind. And it left him with too much room for thought.

And his thoughts turned to Dean as he walked up the path to the darkened house, making note of the early hour, of the Impala recklessly parked with a trail of dust still settling behind it, the still open door. The group was supposed to be out celebrating Bobby's legs, snagging Death's ring, stopping Pestilence's plans, but it seemed they'd returned.

"You do know I don't sleep, Dean," Castiel grumbled wearily as he entered, engulfed by the familiar musk of rotting wood panel flooring, beer stained carpet, and salt.

He shuffled into the living room, eerily empty in the bleak morning hue. His eyes skid over the desk where Sam would have been, behind a mountain of books. The pop of beer caps as Bobby walked through the kitchen was absent from his ears and his wheelchair lay discarded, no longer needed. The place was a tomb.

Soundlessly, Castiel's blade slid down from his sleeve into the snug hold of his hand and he wondered how well he'd fight without his "mojo". He was already considering a trap, nerves on alert, though how could they mimic Dean's voice? He knew it too well to be fooled.

"Newsflash: you're creepy, Cas, and now that you're human you might actually need some beauty rest," Dean's low rumble jolted Castiel and he turned on his heels towards the sound, his blade retreating.

And there he was, leaning against the doorway to the kitchen, unmistakably Dean with scrutinizing green eyes that could make an angel doubt his faith, the red baggage underneath them screaming "drunk: approach with caution" and the smile even further beneath saying "come on in, welcome home". Drawn in, as if by a spell, Castiel almost missed the deep gash that marked Dean's left temple. But when he saw it, his hollow gut dropped with a sudden, sickening weight.

"Am I here to play nurse?" Castiel barked, harsher than usual; it was getting harder to be neutral about Dean's drunken beck and call routines, especially now that it required him to walk.

Dean's grin widened. "This?" Dean waved off the bloody mess of a head as he pushed off the wall, surprisingly steady. "Just a scratch."

"Is what caused it why I'm here?" He articulated drearily. Dean's humored eyes hardened, his casual smile wavering.

"What if I rang you to hang out, huh? Have a beer, instead of having you play pit-bull all the time?"

"Dean, you're drunk already. And, it's the apocalypse," Castiel sighed tiredly as he moved towards Dean, hand raised to ease him into sleep.

And then he remembered, around the same time Dean reached out to swat away his hand, that he couldn't do that anymore. Dean's smugness increased tenfold.

"No more of those tricks, buddy. Besides, the apocalypse is perfect reason to waste time," Dean scoffed, shaking his head. Drunk or sober, Dean was blind to Castiel. He didn't see how much Castiel wanted this to be just them talking, bantering back and forth about human customs Dean thought he needed to know or TV sitcoms that were "just classics", instead of constantly being summoned to tip over the hourglass and slow down the end, or put a drunkard to sleep just so he could help when Dean woke up sober. He didn't see the shadows underneath Castiel's eyes, didn't see that he was tired, so very tired but really didn't want to show it. Because he knew what this was, and what his boys needed and wanted from him. He needed to be useful to them, to Dean after everything that had and would occur. He needed to be the angel that guarded him, and what use was a guardian angel that fell asleep on the job?

Dean was making his way to the couch, where he carelessly plopped down.

"But since you've got such a pole up your ass, yes, it is why you're here," Dean admitted grumpily, running a hand over the wound. In the pooling light from the window, Castiel caught the scuff marks on Dean's knuckles.

"Demon, horseman, what was it this time?"

A humorless laugh. "Younger brother."

Letting out a pent-up sigh rolled in aggravation and exhaustion, Castiel moved towards the couch and nudged at Dean's sprawled out legs until they moved off to make room. They sat next to each other in silence for a passing moment, Castiel allowing himself that brief span of time to hear the therapeutic in and out of Dean's breath. But he wasn't here to enjoy that instant. Castiel finally moved for the first aid that lay in wait on the coffee table, its contents almost completely done for.

"I told you, it's just a scratch," Dean huffed in protest when he noticed Castiel rummaging through the box for ointments.

"The correct term is 'gash', and if you don't clean it you will get it infected, and then you will be whining about it later," was the dry retort. There was a bit more huffing and puffing about it, but Dean allowed his fallen angel to mend the wound. First aid was something Sam had taught Castiel after they'd staggered back from Serenity Valley, useful but slow tactics for someone who used to heal with just the touch of a forefinger. However, it was exponentially easier than trying to teach him how to shoot a gun, though he'd finally managed a gun that very day. It came naturally when he was trying to help Dean. It was an excuse to get closer to him, that personal space issue dissolving long enough to let Castiel get a good look at him.

The hunter's skin was burning under his fingertips and weary, deep lines drew frowns in the freckled skin. Briefly, Castiel wondered how Dean would react if he tried to smooth out those lines with his hands.

"Sam's planning his wedding to Lucifer. Did you know that?" Dean suddenly coughed up between swabs of alcohol against his forehead, and Castiel knew that the pleasantries were over. Sure, Dean was trying his hand at being casual but the veins in his temples grew strained, and more blood rushed to the opening Castiel was trying to clean.

"It's a possibility that he may have mentioned it," Castiel muttered quietly.

"Remember when I told you to lie because that's what humans did? Don't do it to me."

"It doesn't matter that I knew or not. He already told you, didn't he?" More tension, more blood.

"Damn it, Cas, that's not the point! You didn't try to talk him out of it? None of that angel preaching babble you fed me about Michael?" Dean steamed, turning his head so that the gash was out of Castiel's reach. He was glaring now, and Castiel wasn't sure if this was drunken anger or sobering anger. Either way, it was misdirected.

"It's not the same, Dean, and you know that. I don't like what Sam has planned any more than you but it's the only plan we have right now, and I'm confident it will work," Castiel tried to reason calmly, but Dean wasn't tolerating any of it.

"Saying yes to Satan and jumping in a hole isn't a plan, Cas! It's a suicide mission, and it sure as hell is a bad one," Dean scowled.

"And his plan somehow caused this gash?" He tried his hand at sidetracking.

Dean's scowl deepened. "Fight in the bar after a few drinks. He wouldn't even give me the fucking keys to the Impala, making me fucking jump the wires."

"You're intoxicated and shouldn't drive."

"Not the fucking point, Cas, and I see what you're doing here."

"Reasoning with you? Yes, I am doing that," Castiel retorted. Usually, his sarcasm would gain a smile from Dean but tonight, he wasn't a happy drunk. Instead, it flicked a switch and Dean was up and off the couch with a light stumble. And he could feel the waves of frustration bulldozing off of Dean and pinning him onto the couch where he sat as his friend began to pace around the room with his arms flailing.

"Then reason me this: what was the fucking point huh? In telling those angel shits to shove it where the sun don't shine? One last minute rebellion against the tsunami of crap that's been comin' at us? It doesn't matter if I say yes or no, Michael still gets what he wants and so does Lucifer. And me? What the fuck do I get?" Dean bellowed, pulling at his chin as if to break off his own jaw.

"Dean..."

"No, you can stop trying to use your shitty reason with me. No, it's not going to work- not this time. Because I don't give a shit about this fucking world," he exclaimed with a snide laugh. "It has never, ever given a shit about me or my brother. They will never know what we gave up for this ass of a planet. And that's what it really is, a big ass of a planet. Oh, whoopie fucking doo, we save the world on the off chance Sammy can fight off the fucking Devil and fling himself into the cage. But what's there to save, huh? You know what I saw outside of the bar tonight? A group of fucking sickos chasing down a homeless guy. You know what I see every day while you fucking chickens flap all over your coop in Heaven? Shit, utter fucking shit every day. And the one constantly good thing in my life is my brother, and after everything, everything I have done, everything he has done, everything -every damn thing, what do we get as a reward? My brother in a fucking hole six feet under, in Hell. With two pissed off archangels and, oh right, possibly my other brother. I'm still just a vessel at the end of the day, because you know what, I'm done. I'm so fed up, I'm done," Dean heaved. He took a breath, shook his head, leaned back against the desk for support that didn't seem to give him enough. He was squeezing his eyes shut, shaking.

"I got nothing left in me and nothing left for me. I don't get peace at the end of the day, I get to clean up after everyone. And those other angels are gonna want my ass on a platter if everything goes down right. And then what?" He continued, fuming.

Hollow, he hated feeling so hollow when he was so large and stuffed into a pocket sized human. He was hollow, and it was a bit of that hungry hollow they talked about because he was starving. He was starving for Dean to see him, to understand.

"Dean, I'm still here. We'll figure this out, and-"

"And what, Cas? Huh? You're gonna be my guardian angel and fight off the bad guys all my life? Newsflash, you're not an angel anymore so what's the point in ha-"

But he couldn't let Dean finish. He couldn't hear it, not from Dean, and when he was so desperate, craving attention that didn't come with any strings.

"Is that it? Is it so bad of an idea to have me around? Is it such a horrible life with me at your side, after everything I've given up for you? Is that it? Now that I don't have my 'mojo', I'm dispensable to you? Pointless?" Castiel seethed, suddenly so close to Dean he could count every individual freckle on his face, and distinguish the different shades and sizes of those little imperfections.

Dean was caught off-guard, his mouth slack and then his eyes melted down, trying to apologize. But Castiel's glare was steel, resolute against showing anything but anger even as a deepening sadness sank into his bones.

"Cas..."

And this was supposed to be the point in the scene when Castiel disappeared, zapped himself out of the picture to avoid being pulled in again, being worn down by Dean Winchester and his words, words, words. Always words, preaching like a devout- but they were just words. And he was too tired to listen.

Dean was still trying, those words pending, waiting to be said.

_"Cas, demons. Cas, Cas if you can hear, there are demons and we're a bit stuck, lots of them, surrounded. Cas, demons, get Dean, the knife," _came an unprovoked howl from Sam, fulfilling Castiel's need of an interruption but feeding him something worse.

"Dean, we need to go." He was pulling at Dean's jacket, pulling him towards the door and out before he could take in the shouts his drunk companion was aiming back at him.

"What the hell, Cas?" Dean huffed in bewilderment as he was shoved into the passenger seat of the Impala. Castiel was already in the driver's seat, but he wasn't quite sure how to make it move. "Get out of my spot, Cas and tell me what's going on."

"You left them at the bar and there were demons, we need to go, you're drunk and shouldn't drive," he was going for the ignition but remembered the keys were with Sam and he didn't know how to illegally start up a car.

A firm hand gripped his flailing one, and pulled it away from the steering wheel. When he glanced up, he could see beneath the humor in Dean's eyes to the sober urgency they both felt. "Cas, buddy, now's not the time for morals or a driving lesson. Move."

And he did, if only to remove Dean's burning hand from his.

"How the hell did they find us," Dean grumbled, his hands at the wires beneath the steering wheel, bashing them together and tweaking to get a result but there was nothing but his heavy breathing in answer to his labor.

Castiel could only watch from the sidelines, waiting against the side of the Impala. And that's when he noticed shifting shadows amongst the piled cars.

"Dean," he called calmly after counting four of these shadows, his body pulling away from the comfort of the car and coming to attention. A bustle of hair popped out from beneath the wheel and he could feel the tension bunch up in Dean's shoulders when he'd locked onto the scenario before them.

"You have to be shitting me," he hissed, yanking the knife from inside his jacket. Castiel had counted five now, but it didn't matter if he kept count or not. They were no longer shadows but approaching morning-lit figures and, amongst them, a familiar smirking raven-haired demon.

"Morning, sunshine," Meg cooed from the front of the demon pack, her eyes glinting when Dean jolted out of the car with a snarl.

"What the hell do you want? Didn't you get the memo, I'm not Michael's bitch anymore."

"Oh, but that's not the only reason we want you dead, buddy boy, and you know it. See, you've been messing with plans, cutting off fingers, and Lucifer is becoming a bit snippy himself," the demon explained with a disdainful sigh.

Castiel grew rigid, watching as a few from her group began to circle the car.

"What did you do to my car?"

"I think you should be more worried about yourself and your little sweetheart over there. Besides, cutting a few connections should make up for all those rings you've been stealing."

"Rot in Hell," he spat, his knuckles projecting out of his hand as it tightened around the blade's handle. Castiel readied himself with his own.

"See you there, pretty boy."

But she wouldn't. The cluster of demons descended upon the two men, but Dean was a Winchester and Castiel had once been an angel, and even with all the quirks that came with being a human he could still remember the basics of killing a demon. And Dean was beyond the basics. It was something Castiel had at once been struck with awe and sorrow about. The skill with which Dean sliced through the attackers was gained through years of ritualized kills, years of having to fight off demons, years that had started during childhood. But it was a skill that Dean executed with such grace; sometimes Castiel wondered what he would have accomplished if he'd been an angel, no longer bounded to humanity's limitations. It was no wonder he was Michael's chosen, and it was no wonder why Castiel had chosen to trust this man with his life as he turned to fight beside him.

He had counted five, and now there were three down. Four, as another dropped beside the leather of Dean's boots. The last one was, naturally, Meg and hurdling towards Dean with the intent to end it while he was still trying to pull the knife from the crumpled body beneath him.

She only got one hit in, sending Dean throttling into a mountain of tires, before Castiel met her full on and shoved her against the Impala with more strength than he thought he had left in his reservoir.

"You brought four demons and you still can't get rid of him. You should have backed off while you had the chance," he seethed, landing a punch in the demon's gut along with another to her face, splitting her lip. He tried to wipe the smile off her face, his pent up frustrations coming out punch after punch, each received with a fragment of his exorcism's incantation. And it felt good, this human, harsh contact that he'd never really felt in the tear of his knuckles. He felt the sting of contact, intense and adrenaline-fueling, and his newly found blood pumped, rushed and pounding in his ears and making him feel alive.

He could barely hear the quick rustle of bodies behind him, the abrupt call from Dean, until he felt a new, searing sting sprawl up from his back and throughout his entire body. When he glanced down between Meg and himself, he saw his own blade protruding from his hollow stomach.

A sickening chuckle rang in his ears, along with the screaming of his nerves.

"Missed one. Didn't they teach you how to count up there? My, my, a fallen angel that can't add, how sad," Meg grinned, her bloody teeth nothing compared to the rush of red coming from his intestines.

He could make out pacing feet in the background, and a body fall to the ground, behind the hammering in his head. The body pinned between him and the car fell limp, Meg rushing out of it as Dean's shadow shrouded over the car. And he felt so small against that shadow, and he was swallowed by it.

As Dean pulled the blade out, pain began to fill Castiel from head to toe, and then numbness.

"I'm falling, Dean, I'm still falling." His voice shook with his crimson hands, stained with blood, his blood, after pressing against the wound. And he felt light as a feather, dizzy, his eyesight failing him, heart flailing and slowing, and his legs were no longer beneath him or glued to the ground.

So this is what it felt like to fall.

Dean's arms caught him before he hit the pavement, secure in their confidence to hold him up. He could hear Dean calling out to him but he couldn't make out the words. The voice was loud and incredibly close. The magnitude of his yells vibrated down Castiel's back and he was grounded. But the calm that came with being caught was brief.

"Hey, hey Cas," Dean called to him, urgent, fading in and out of focus. And was his voice shaking too, or was that just Castiel's breath? "Hey, I got you. I got you."

He could make out the shriek of an approaching car, the crunch of gravel, somewhere behind Dean's warmth.

"Dean, I'm falling," was the only reply he could manage, his mind finding it hard to form sentences, form words besides Dean, Dean, Dean. "Dean..."

"Hey, if you're gonna fall, you better stick the landing. Don't close your eyes on me, come on and try to stand," Dean urged, practically begged as he nudged his friend, pulling him up as Castiel's legs slipped against the pavement. He was trying to turn him around, to get him in the car that wasn't even working anymore, like everything else that wasn't working, that was useless. Useless, utterly useless.

"I can't go anywhere, Dean. I'm falling and I don't have anywhere to land. I'm going to die, Dean. I'm dying and I don't know where to go, I don't want to go." His white shirt was now almost completely drenched in blood, and he remembered how Joe went, and this was how he was going to go too. And by his own blade. Was this what humans called irony? Irony was useless, too, when you were dying.

"You're not going anywhere, you idiot," Dean's grip tightened around his fallen angel. "You're landing right here and I got you, so don't you fucking go anywhere." The back door to a car was opening, and he could hear feet now, two pairs stampeding towards them.

"Dean," Castiel sighed, no more panic- just exhaustion.

He thought he heard Dean say something behind the roar of his heartbeat and the flicker of Castiel's. But his vision was being swallowed by that shadow and everything was turning black. And then he was gone, falling between Heaven and Hell with Dean somewhere in the middle grabbing him and fighting against gravity like he fought against everything.


	2. Chapter 2

_Don't you leave me._

A comforting pool of warmth, fuzzy against Castiel's skin, painted splotches of rose and gold against his eyelids. His heart raced and his eyes flinched. He wanted to keep them shut, squeezed tighter against the light. If he opened them, the pits of fire that had awaited him the second his wings were clipped would greet him. Maybe his fallen brother would be there, applauding his failure. Or maybe, just maybe it was all an even greater falsehood and when he opened his eyes, he would see the desolation of nothing.

Who knew where angels went to die, and who knew where the fallen ones went to perish.

"Cas, I get that you're concentrating but you look ready to shit your pants," a voice called to him from close behind; Inviting, sunlit kisses from heated breathe rained down on his neck. There was the untrue promise of a body behind him, sincere and tempting.

And then there were burning hands on his own human hands; everything led him to believe he was in his vessel, that he was holding something. But he almost let it slip from his grasp. As his hands jolted at the touch so did his eyes. They sprung open and landed on the striking, fiery sunlit face of Dean Winchester.

"Look, it's not hard to do," Dean continued with an amused smile; his carefree laugh lines spread out like wings around his eyes and mouth. Breathless at the sight, Castiel felt, for the first time, the literal, dizzying effects of foregoing oxygen. That blithe grin stood stark against the array of scowls he was so used to seeing. It was so bare, so at home that Castiel looked away, turned bashful at seeing the hidden bits of Dean's light when it wasn't his to see. Not anymore.

As Dean went about manhandling Castiel's fingers around a fishing pole, he tried to figure out where he was. It all felt eerily familiar, from the crystalline river waters that pulsed downstream around his submerged trousers, to the particular angle of the sun in the sky that smeared the sky and treetops in a blanket of auburn. Dean wore a brown plaid shirt he'd worn out ages ago, torn through by a vengeful spirit sometime between his rise from Hell and Lucifer's escape.

He could hear Sam downstream, cursing at a rebellious fish that was flapping around on his line. He knew exactly what was going to happen: Sam would try to take the fish off the line and it would slap him in the face as he tried, before jumping back into the river.

And then Dean's laughter would fill his ears, distracted from his task of teaching Castiel how to fish. They were taking a break between towns, and Castiel had popped in to tell them about another endangered seal only to be pulled in for some relaxation since "you're lookin' like a stiff. And besides, me and Sammy are in the middle of grabbing dinner. Well, at least I am."

Dean wouldn't let Castiel say no. It had warmed him, a sensation that had started in his cheeks and toes and sprawled out to fill his chest and make him whole.

He tuned in just in time to hear the throaty roar of Dean's laughter as Sam cursed and bellowed that he was going to find a convenience store for some "real food".

"Bring me pie," Dean howled between chuckles though, from the obscenity Sam displayed with his fingers, Castiel assumed there was no pie to be brought. He didn't have to assume, however, because he knew quite well that Sam would bring an empty pie box and get rewarded for his efforts with a shove off the Impala's hood.

He knew all this, because this was undoubtedly a memory.

"Cas, you have something on your line," Dean managed to say after he'd composed himself and Sam had disappeared beyond the tree-line. It was only after Dean brought attention to it that Castiel felt the tug inside his enclosed palms, and looked to see the pole bending forward, the stern string diving further into the stream. Dean was already grabbing at the reel for Cas, human hands comfortably gloving his own and guiding him through the motion of pulling in a fish.

Callouses on Dean's hands, rough against Jimmy Novak's unworked skin, sent fireworks within Castiel. There was a strain from inside; a bursting wild that warned him, screamed that Novak's body was no longer able to contain him. It happened this way, sometimes, when Dean entered brief moments of intimacy or Castiel chanced one of his own. His bones rattled, and flickers of fantastic and senseless thoughts would rush through him and funnel into his grace, make his wings irritable, his chemicals imbalanced, his essence ecstatic. And in moments like these, what was now a ghost of his grace broke out insubordinately, calling out. He remembered worrying if Dean had detected the brief, eager glow beneath Castiel's skin, the strange static in the small spaces between their hands and bodies. Dean hadn't.

"Hook, line, and look at that sucker," the hunter breathed, musky with satisfaction, the words dancing across Castiel's flesh and making him jittery and tense and confused all over again. It had been Dean who taught Castiel about personal space, and yet he was the one that failed to maintain it. Of course, he was too wrapped up in his imagined victory at teaching an angel something of equally imagined import. Castiel remembered vividly now how Dean wouldn't allow anyone in their group to forget that fact, try as he might to inform Dean that, as an angel, he had no use for fishing.

He'd only decided to let Dean teach him as an excuse to linger, resisting returning to Heaven like a child refusing to go to school, in favor of staying in the comfort of home.

So was this his Heaven, then? He scanned the ground behind him, past the parked Impala, tried to find a road he was supposed to follow in order to visit his other memories and discovered nothing of the kind. Everything was picture-perfect, exactly how it had been the day he'd went fishing with Dean. If this was it, he wasn't at all disappointed. But he was perplexed. This wasn't the Heaven he knew, and he knew of no other place to go.

"Dean," he tried at interaction, and watched as Dean's broad back stiffened at the sound of his name. But he didn't turn from the cooler, where he'd placed Castiel's fish.

"Dean," he tried again, more insistent. A mistake.

The sun's heat faltered and the waters grew quiet in the wake of the disruption. And Castiel could feel the edges of the memory begin to fray and everything around Dean, outside Castiel's focus, blurred and wilted into black. There was a murmured static in the background, a channel losing its signal.

"Don't you leave me." But Dean's solemn utterance was defeated, as if he knew Castiel was already slipping away. The lines in his plaid shirt were starting to meld together and grow hazy, and then Dean was the one leaving him.

The absence was only just settling in his blood when the water beneath him rushed away, the blurred scenery around him speeding off with it in fast forward. The golds and rustic oranges melded together, slurred and shifted to bleaker roadsides enclosed behind grey frames and glass. The hum of chatter and the cranky motor of an automobile filled his ears and he was slapped with the reality of a bus, one he'd ridden only days ago. But he wasn't sitting, he was still standing, and before him and in front of the rushing country was the old woman he'd spoken with, and himself poised forward in the seat across her, rigid and awkward.

He'd never really seen Jimmy Novak when he was hosting the man's body, never really gotten to study the strangeness of being a human if only in the physical, possessed sense. Ever since he'd fallen, he'd avoided mirrors and now he was staring right at himself. Porcelain skin had grown ragged, yanked through Hell and Heaven and back. Bags were sinking into his face around his eyes. The blue eyes were his now, or were before he'd died. They were filled with anxiety and irritation, dodging the steady gaze of his interrogator.

"So, disowned, huh? What happened?" Because naturally, she wouldn't ask questions Dean had prepared him for like "how was your day" or "fine weather we're having". The last wasn't exactly a question, but Dean seemed adamant about Castiel learning "filler talk" since "people don't really give two craps, Cas, they just hate the silence" for reasons Dean wouldn't tell him.

He watched himself clutch at his knees, knuckles blanched and straining to jump out of his tiresome skin. "I," he'd fumbled for a moment, chapped lips floundering open. "I strayed."

There was a huff from his acquaintance, and she was leaning into her seat with shrugged shoulders.

"Oh, well I hope it was for love and not something flimsy," she puffed and, as she shook her head, the small wrinkles moved as if to frown along with her lips. And though her astonishment and judgment didn't make any sense given what little she really knew about him, her response had resonated with him. Still did.

"Me too," he'd said, unable to hold in his honesty as Dean had warned him to do.

Her sharp eyes were on him again. He remembered wondering if she was a journalist, or just a nosey old lady.

"How don't you know?"

"It's...," Castiel's body sagged, and he could see the stress building in him. "It's complicated."

She laughed lightly. "Love is the least complicated aspect of life, if you let it be. Trust me, I've lived long enough to know."

He was biting his lip. "Well, he-"

"Oh," she blurted, eyes wide. He was quick to correct her.

"No, that's not the complicated part, I don't think. I mean, I don't know how these things work," he sighed, frustration swarming out.

She gave a sympathetic smile, sprinkled with humor as she patted him on the knee, holding his hand comfortingly. "I'm sure you can find out how those specifics work through the internet, if you know what I mean."

He still didn't know what she meant. Nowhere had he found interspecies relationship tutorials or advice on Sam's computer, only a handful of pornographic, bestiality images.

"Besides, love is love. You have the rest of your life to put the pieces together, just make sure not to take too long or you'll never enjoy the end product."

He didn't want to be in this memory anymore, not wanting to be surrounded by the bus as the A.C began to break down and the children began to whine. He tested his abilities by walking straight through the bus, and found he could do just that.

His body leaned sideways, still moving with the bus as he stepped through the frame and into the brown fields he'd seen breezing past him. It was continuously rewinding, brushing past his trousers as if it was a 3-d image on an infinite treadmill. But he stayed motionless in the fragment of his memory, squinted eyes staring up at the imagined sun and skin letting in the fake rays of warmth.

There was a silence here, outside but still inside the memory, that allowed Castiel to be absent from himself. There was nothing for him to truly look at, because it was the same, repeated rustle of grass and wall of trees. He felt more constant here than he did within the moments in which he knew what was going to happen. He was freed from the images that had led him to being here, stuck in those scenes of confusion and humanity he wasn't supposed to feel anymore. For reasons other than those Dean had once ranted about, Castiel didn't like this Heaven. It was just a reminder of everything he couldn't have, now or even when he was still alive. He let himself just be there, interrupting a piece of his Heaven, or whatever it was, that he wasn't supposed to be in. He was allowed to forget himself within the hum of this blimp of time that existed just outside of what was important.

But it wouldn't last long. The rules of this place caught up to him. The twisted grass snapped, disassembling, bending backwards and crumbling into dirt. The sun stirred, sneaking into a new position in the sky to mark evening and the trees shrank away as cars began to fall from above. They landed with a clash to form Bobby's junk car lot. The gravel to his left complained as feet and wheels approached. When he looked over, he recognized himself and Bobby, still resigned to his wheelchair. And they appeared to be looking straight at him, his own face constrained with that same anxiety that had followed him out of the hospital. Bobby's stoic expression was crumbling and for a moment Castiel wondered if they were, indeed, looking at him.

"They're fighting. I believe it isn't the first time, either. Is it?" He heard himself say, and it verified that he was invisible. He followed the two's gaze past where he stood and saw that further to his right, in the same spot he'd died, stood the two boys with only the Impala keeping them apart. Dean's tense arms were, at the moment, resting against his car. Sam's feet paced, he wanted to go into the house but he was too heated, frustrated responses rushing out of him as Dean ranted.

And Castiel knew where and when he was.

"They were like this before they left, and now they're right back at it even though they just got back from that damn Serenity hell hole," Bobby grunted. "N' I'm sure I know exactly what it's about. Pains in my ass."

There was a silence on their part, but there was the rumble of Sam and Dean right there, an infinite battle of wills.

"Do you think Sam..." Bobby coughed, and both Castiels looked at him, saw a fatherly weight sink into the man's eyes and shoulders.

"... will manage to subdue Lucifer?" He'd filled in and Bobby's shoulders collapsed.

"So he told you, then."

"Sam told me, yes, as we were getting into the car. I don't know if he'll manage but I hope so. I believe he's strong enough given his drive to prove himself, to Dean. He doesn't want to let him down." And he feared what would happen if Sam wasn't able to fight the archangel off, what would happen to Dean especially now that Castiel was no longer there. He could almost scold himself for worrying more for Dean than he did for the world. If his Heaven was showing him anything, it was Dean's heavy weight on Castiel's mind, enveloping every memory he could call his. Two thousand years of being, and he'd only truly felt alive in the past two.

"Almost as bad as you," Bobby scoffed with a twitch of his mustache. When Castiel gave him a mixed look of confusion and shock, the old man huffed in frustration.

"Oh, please. Both of you're hell bent when it comes to Dean, but at least Sam understands Dean's the same way 'bout him," he continued. Castiel was shaking his head, looking away towards the cars and in the process, staring at dead-Castiel. He could see himself screaming for Bobby to stop. "Look, we all know you'd fly to the moon n' back if Dean asked you to and he knows. Even if both of you pretend to think that all the loyalty is one-sided. His stubborn ass knows n' he's just too stupid to show it."

Both past and present Castiel knew where this conversation was going and one of them had the choice to leave. So he did, he left the two to discuss bygones and moved towards the boys. The memory was growing tight around him, like he was pressing against a screen, but it didn't tear. He stood near Dean; he watched him furrow his definite brows, his eyes glint with anger and fear because his little brother was choosing to take the big plunge.

"Thank you, but it's not a matter of him knowing anything," he heard himself say from behind. When he glanced over at Sam, the details of his face were out of focus; hard to make out compared to Dean's. But he could see the hopelessness of Sam's situation painted in the features Castiel could detect, and he remembered how urgent Sam had been when he'd pulled Castiel aside outside of Serenity Valley.

"You'll make sure he's okay, right? When it happens?" Suddenly, there was another Sam, in the same clothes but right in front of Castiel, a hand on his shoulder as if to hold him back from getting into an imaginary car. Two memories blurred together, piled on top of him.

He was staring into Sam's fervent eyes, a lit fire inside of them that echoed harshly of his future if he was to succeed. Under the pressure, Castiel had agreed. Of course he would, he would try to make sure Dean was okay, but he knew how Sam's fate would make being "okay" extremely difficult. Castiel being there to mend the pain was like putting a Band-Aid on an amputated leg. Dean was still going to bleed out, still be unable to get back on his feet.

"He cares about you, Cas. Don't you go thinkin' otherwise." Concern, earnest concern; he could hear it in Bobby's voice. To avoid Sam's stare, Castiel glanced back at Bobby, remembered feeling just as uncomfortable under his gaze as he did under Sam's. Like they knew something he didn't or, rather, knew something he didn't want them to.

When he braved looking back, Sam-from-Serenity was gone. And instead, he was gazing at Dean's face, and it was veering towards defeat. So many lines on his face. Castiel could read between those lines: Dean was tired. He was tired of fighting: of fighting his brother, of fighting fate, of fighting all his life. And Castiel wanted to be there to make it stop, to help in some way but he was endlessly useless. Especially here, standing next to a reimagined Dean in a place where all he could do was repeat useless, fragmented memories.

"You're important, wings or no wings. Take it from a man who's lost his own."

Castiel had wanted to believe Bobby then, and believe now. But, as Dean walked right through him, he knew that those words were just comforting lies and that, unfortunately for him, Castiel wasn't human enough to buy into them.

He decided, with increasing nervousness, to linger beside the silent Impala as the group moved into the house. He waited for the transition, wondered what would come next, but instead he felt a tug on his spine that urged him backwards before snapping him inside the house. It wasn't a new memory, but a continuation, and one he hadn't wanted to reenact.

Dean had just entered, smashing the door behind him. He barreled towards Castiel and this time, it was towards him. There was no imagined, memory-Castiel. No, he was grabbing him, dead-Castiel, and pulling him into the hallway while Sam and Bobby nervously looked on. Stunned, Castiel could only be tugged along. He wasn't sure if it was a replication of his initial shock that day, or a reignited feeling at being touched, the roughness of Dean's hand on his forearm a missed explosion of nerves.

They came to a stop near the staircase and for a while, Dean was silent. He rubbed at his stubble, pulling at his chin, trying to coax out the necessary words. Finally, he tore his gaze away from the floor and pinned Castiel.

"What if I said yes to Michael-"

"Dean," Castiel sighed, more so just to say his name than anything. It made him feel alive, no longer a suffocating mute in his own memory.

"Hear me out. What if I said yes, and I managed to fight him off long enough to push Lucifer into the cage. I'm gonna get Death's ring, and then we could do that, right? Whaddya think?" Dean puffed out, eager, nervous, falling to pieces. He didn't know that Sam had already told Castiel his own version of this plan.

Castiel felt lost, unable to fight against Dean's bulldozing train of thought, unable to stop what had already happened.

Dean was shaking his head as if Castiel had said something, which Castiel contended he had. Just not this time around.

"No, no. Michael wouldn't want to use Adam. They said I was the only true vessel, and he's a stickler for tradition. If I called, he'd bite," he tried to reason, shifting feet.

"He'd destroy you. I'd lose you," Castiel murmured, would go unheard in this one-sided recording.

Dean scowled, swallowed down a foul taste. "So what if I'm human for a few minutes? It's the surprise of the attack. He'd think I'm Michael or something, and then I'd just shove him in- Don't talk to me about how long it would take to open the port. It could work. Maybe I'd still have the strength of an archangel, maybe I could hold him down or something. We can figure something out. We could do something, something. Can't you do some of your angel voodoo?"

And then he stopped, because he'd slapped Castiel with a question they both knew the answer to. And he hadn't meant to remind Castiel of what he'd lost, but he did. Over, and over again. And what he'd lost wasn't just his wings, but his purpose.

If you clipped the wings off a bird, was it really still a bird?

Sure it would, but it would die from heartbreak, and extreme blood loss.

"Cas, come on, don't look at me like that." Dean's face buckled under everything, and Castiel knew he was genuinely worried. But it didn't matter now. "Look, I just. I just need someone to be on my side right now. I need to make a good plan, because right now we got nothing but a shitload of an apocalypse and I need help."

He watched Dean go on trying to bandage the wound he'd unknowingly opened. And all he could think of was how much he was going to miss seeing Dean get all frazzled over what to do, face red and flustered over trying to say what he felt without really saying it. Because he never said "I need you" the whole time he tried to get Castiel to agree with his plan. He always danced around the bullet with Castiel's name on it. He tried to find millions of words to substitute for those three simple ones. And that's what made it so hard for Castiel to believe Bobby. Because his human was too afraid to say it, too ashamed to bare the truth. And Castiel hadn't been strong enough to make him say it while he still could.

"Fine. If you'd rather have a fucking pity party instead of helping me, fine. Angels don't like to get involved in human matters, I forgot 'bout that. This would probably be the part where you flap your wings and disappear, leaving me to figure this shit out on my own. Always leaving, too bad you can't do that now. That must be real hard, not being able to feed that habit," Dean finally shot out in a flurry of frustration, storming off and leaving Castiel to digest his words for a second time.

Yeah, he was having a damn hard time believing Dean needed him.

So, Castiel was alone again, kicked to the curb by his own memory and standing there by the staircase with the edges of the scene frayed and sounding with static again. But it wasn't changing. It continued to linger, tormenting Castiel and provoking questions about this place he'd been dropped into. What was a Heaven that provided negative memories? It was supposed to be euphoric, if not repetitive. He was becoming just as tattered and befuddled as his fading recollections.

It was then, as if on cue, that he began to feel the workings of an earthquake that he didn't remember being part of. The walls began to crumble around him as he tried to steady himself against it, chunks cracking off and tearing down the whole house with it. The ground shook beneath him, erratically and furiously. Quickly, he realized it wasn't the wooden floors because they were no longer there. He saw panels falling, toppling downward in an endless black absence, and he was somehow hovering within it, and it was his body that was shaking. Yet, his feet were steady. He was being shaken.

"Cas!" Loud, abrupt, and directly in his face.

He looked up from the bottom and saw Dean's face again, and rising quickly and swarming around him were the walls of Bobby's house again and, behind the freckles, the ceiling. Castiel was lying on something soft and springy. The couch, he reasoned as he came to. He placed a hand to his head as Dean gruffly helped him sit up, Castiel's head still swerving and his eyes still pierced with black and freckles, and his ears ringing with whispered words he felt he needed to remember.

"Hey, earth to Cas," Dean grunted and gave a rough pat to his back, making him wince. He glanced down at his stomach, saw a bandage stained red, wondered how he was alive, marveled at the feeling, no matter how brief, of Dean's balancing hand. "You good?"

"I think so," Castiel breathed, fearful that even thinking positive would send him back to limbo.

"Good, 'cause we don't need a corpse on our hands. You were out for a while." It was after the initial shock of waking up that Castiel realized how curt Dean's attitude was. When he ventured a look at Dean's face, he saw impassivity. And the hunter was already moving away from the couch, rubbing a towel against his blood stained hands.

"Thanks for the concern," Castiel snapped, annoyed and muzzling the hurt he felt stinging his lower abdomen. He wasn't so sure it was from the physical wound.

"You're the dumb ass that got in the way. You shouldn't have been fighting, it was a nuisance." Dean casually leaned against the opposite wall, looking right through Castiel with hardened eyes. And it was like that night all over again, and he was filled with nausea and frustration.

Castiel fought the urge to shoot up from the couch. He was certain that, in his condition, he'd collapse and just prove Dean's point. "If I remember correctly, I was trying to protect your ass," he hissed in reply.

Dean shrugged, tossing the towel onto the desk beside him. Castiel's eyes took in the rest of the room and, once again, they were alone.

"Where are the others?"

"Out."

"Very informative," Castiel grumbled.

"Coming from you, that's priceless."

"What the hell, Dean?" He roared, and though he expected a headache to rush forth- it thankfully did not.

"What? Expected a welcome back hug or something?" Dean scoffed, a strange grin surfacing that wasn't his own. His laugh lines didn't reach his eyes, were shallow and false. Castiel felt eerily uncomfortable, more irritable than usual, not at all at home where he usually felt so natural and invited, even on Dean's worst days. He couldn't look at Dean, or the cruelty that was hiding somewhere beneath the green. Even his freckles seemed off, drained of life. His posture was too stiff, too proper. Everything felt off, even the air between them.

Even if Dean didn't need him, he wouldn't be this way. Not when he'd gripped Castiel and held him as he bled out. He could still recall the safety that had enveloped him as Dean tried so hard to keep him there. This wasn't right.

"Did she get a knock at your head, too? Cas, wake up. We need to talk about Sam's valiant plan, and how much it won't work."

"You're not Dean," Castiel blurted, his gaze hardening on the imposter. A cold silence followed, Dean's face frozen in its stern sneer. Slowly, as Castiel's verdict hung heavy between them, the confidence fell from its place and smoldering disdain took over.

"I do find this simpleton's mannerisms exhausting, so I'd applaud you just for letting me drop the act. If only you weren't just as irritable," Dean's voice replied harshly.

Castiel's eyes narrowed, his stomach growing hollow. "Michael. What did you do to him?"

Dean's body shrugged, and Castiel couldn't help the shudder that curdled through his body at the thought of Michael using Dean as a vessel. "You heard him, twice actually, propose this idea of using me to push Lucifer into the cage. What an imbecile, thinking himself above my power. As you can see, it didn't work out in his favor."

"You're lying," Castiel seethed, glaring and raging enough to stand up from the security of the couch.

"How could you possibly know that," he scoffed.

Castiel's hand pressed roughly against his bandaged wound, and was relieved to receive nothing but the dull throb of pressing too tightly against his stomach. There was no searing pain of a stab wound. Dean's eyes narrowed as Castiel's lips thinned into a hardened line of determination.

"This is still part of whatever platform of torture you've conjured for me. It was you, wasn't it?"

"Don't regard yourself so highly. I simply took advantage of your time of dying to manipulate your memories and send a message. It simply seemed more suiting to use this body, it was my true vessel despite the idiot it encases," Michael muttered, and Castiel fought hard not to lunge at him because it was still Dean's voice, Dean's body. Even if it was within some twisted midpoint between living and dying.

"And what message was that?" Castiel grit out, trying to look past the cruelty Dean's eyes displayed, to Michael's true form.

Now, Dean's lips were smiling again. And again, it was all wrong. "That you fell in vain."

"What are you talking about?"

"Castiel, dearest Castiel, my brother. You know what I speak of. You've been coveting things beyond your grasp. You fight against me, against Heaven, for a delusion. But you don't need to. We would welcome you back, we need all the angels we can save, Castiel," he sighed, broad arms opening in assurance, but Castiel's skin crawled at the idea of proximity with those arms. "We would grant you access to Heaven if only you abandoned these illusions of yours and allowed my fight with Lucifer to go uninterrupted by these foolish men."

"Freewill is a delusion now, is it?" Castiel ridiculed, his body tensing. "It's blasphemous to want freewill, to want it for them, as God designed?"

Suddenly, Dean- Michael was detached from the wall and moving towards him, with the slow pace of a predator. Castiel froze, unsure as Dean's body inched closer and closer to him. When Michael spoke in Dean's voice, the familiar smell of beer, aftershave, leather and gasoline crashed over him, made it hard for him to think coherently, made a rope between his ribs constrict around his heart.

"You and I both know that was not all you desired for them. For him. From him," He breathed, manipulating Castiel's suffering and conflicting emotions and thoughts. They jumbled in a hurricane of resistance and need. He shut his eyes tight, forced himself to forget the proximity Michael was allowing him to Dean's arms and chest and face, his lips inches away from Castiel's ears. "This is why you fell, brother. You've grown too close, you've grown greedy. And for nothing, because the desire is unrequited. Why continue this?"

Castiel flinched, his body reeling backwards from the gunshot to his chest those words provided. He couldn't get far enough away from Michael, from Dean. From the things he didn't want to hear.

"Don't you dare assume anything about me or him," he retorted weakly.

"I'm not assuming. If I said it in this body, would it make it any more obvious? Here: I don't need you," he spelled out. And it was digging into Castiel's stab wound, burning it and making it more real than any pain he'd felt.

"I don't want you. You're useless," he continued, the words rolling off his tongue so easily, a list he was checking off point by point.

"You're not Dean," Castiel fought meekly. He balled his fists, felt a strange warm tingling around his left hand, tried to ignore it but it grew in intensity.

"I'm as good as. He's an easy creature to interpret. You've simply been playing blind. You don't want to see, and so you don't. But you must see the mockery he's made of you. I could stop all of this and bring you home." Dean's eyes watched him through that cold layer of Michael, and Castiel was losing his grip. And that intense force was burning his hand, compressing it beyond his own clenching.

When he glanced down, however, there was nothing visible to attach to the feeling. It simply ghosted there, rough and calloused and determined.

"Go away," he heaved.

"I'm not that easy to get rid of, Castiel. You're human now, if only for a small while before you finally pass on. I can stay in your mind for as long as I please, or until you say yes," Michael commented, the confidence in it almost Dean-like. But not enough to deter Castiel.

He made for the door of the house, opened it, stumbled into another memory.

Castiel was being led towards the back rooms of a strip club. Dean was rooting him on. Castiel remembered this, remembered eying Dean as he was pulled away with sheer horror coursing through him because he didn't feel that human impulse of lust. He only felt that rope tightening between them two, his chest creaking the further he was pulled from Dean.

Dean gave a laugh, looked right at him with that cold smile that never reached joy.

"He voluntarily gave you up to a woman you didn't even know, a harlot. He spent the little time before you were kicked out looking at other women, lusting after them."

Castiel shook his head, fought the iron hold of Chastity, the prostitute, and ran out the exit door. His heart was lurching into his throat, and he was trying to escape his own mind, his Hell.

Instead of funneling into an empty alleyway, he stumbled into another slab of Dean. He was beaten, and Castiel was raging with pent up distress because Dean was trying to say yes to Michael, he was giving up. And Castiel had given up everything for him, everything, and there was nothing to show for it but a broken man on the ground without a care for what would happen to Castiel. He just wanted it to end, he wasn't missing Castiel. He was too full of himself, so selfish.

Dean spat out blood and gave a sinister laugh. "He is selfish, Cas. Very selfish, and the only person he gives a damn about is dear Sammy. It doesn't matter how many fistfuls of anger you pound into him."

"Stop it," Castiel groaned, his insides churning and that tingling sensation on his hand tuning up to a boil. Distraught, he felt his body cave and crumple to the floor. He was heaving, and he figured if he was dying he should at least not need to breathe here.

He didn't look up when he heard footsteps approach him, even when Dean's engulfing hands gripped his shoulders. He was being pulled up from all fours, and his knees dug into the concrete.

"I'll stop now, brother, because I know you see now. Dean Winchester was a means to an end, and since he could not fulfill that you must banish him from your thoughts. It's unhealthy to be this devoted." He was trying to be gentle, but Dean's voice made Castiel's stomach reel. He was staring at the ground, refusing to look at the falsehood in front of him.

"But we were meant to love man," he sighed, resigned.

"We were meant to stay at a distance, you were meant to be an angel, Castiel. You serve a purpose in Heaven, not on earth. And you can again."

"How," Castiel croaked.

"Simple. Promise me you'll leave, forget this fallacy of free will he's filled you with to string you along. I will heal you and when I have defeated Lucifer, you can come home."

A weak, humorless smile. "And if I refuse?"

"You will die, Castiel." The grip on his shoulders became fierce and he knew without looking, that the face Michael wore was hardened.

Castiel smiled, a small laugh filling his throat but never managing to make it all the way out through the tightened pipes. He allowed Michael to wait just a little longer, before finally mustering up the strength to speak.

"In that case, I'll just have to see where angels go to die."

Silence.

The stern hands that sunk his shoulders slowly began to dissipate, the concrete beneath him cascading away in chunks as a wave of relief fell over him. The confrontation receded until he was fully submerged in dark silence again. And he let himself collapse, face down until the blank world reoriented and he was facing upwards.

For a while, he could only hear his own heavy breathing and the echo of Michael's words. There in the isolation, his words seemed to bear heavier on Castiel's mind. They lay above him in script, repeating over and over. Had he just refused an offer to return to grace?

"Kind of a bleak night, huh? No stars or nothin'. Not even grass. What the hell kind of Heaven is this, Cas?"

Castiel didn't even jump. He was getting used to the obscure, blunt nature of his mind. And he was growing so tired.

Turning his head, he spotted the real Dean, or as real as it could get for an illusion. He was confident it was him, and not Michael's rag doll. Dean was relaxed in the dismal light Castiel's mind provided them in that abyss, the lines of his face just right as his smile settled peacefully amongst his dotted features, his chest rising and falling at a hypnotic, easy pace. He smelled of home, he felt like home.

"It's not Heaven, yet... Why are you here, Dean?"

"Because your subconscious wanted me to be. It's kind of creepy, but hey I don't mind," he replied casually, a small shrug of his shoulders as he continued to glance up, or down. There was no real sense of direction on this plane.

"Is that because you really don't or because you're not real?" Castiel muttered, though he didn't really care. He was enjoying the shared solitude.

"Ouch, Cas, way to hurt my feelings. Of course I'm real, in your head. Besides, since you don't want me to mind, I don't. I'm obligated to bend to your will." He was teasing now, amusement prancing in those green eyes. He finally met Castiel's gaze.

"Are you also obligated to be an ass?" A glimmer of a smile on his own face.

"You want me to be as true to myself as possible, so yeah."

They shared in the silence that followed; a calm synchronicity falling between them. They breathed in and out as one, because they were.

"Will you miss me?" Castiel suddenly asked, quiet and afraid to disturb the sanctity of their rest. He'd been prodded by the return of warmth in his hand, pressing and familiar. He could feel Dean holding his hand, but he assumed it was his subconscious wishing it so. He dismissed the thought.

Dean's eyes melted into troubled seas. "You don't want me to, 'cause it'll hurt. For me, and you. But, you want me to miss you all the same. You really don't know what you want, do you?"

"I guess not," Castiel mustered, his throat constricting.

"Well, buddy, you need to figure that out soon."

"What for? I'm dead, no point in doing anything anymore."

"Technically: dying, but I don't think you will die. I hope not. And that means you hope not, too," Dean shrugged as he turned to look above him. One star had popped up, distant and bright. It made Dean smile, and the urgency of his hand around Castiel's strengthened.

"Michael said I was going to die. Besides, Meg stabbed me, in the intestines. Humans die that way, if memory serves me right."

"Yeah but," Dean shook his head, "it missed the important stuff. Meg sure as hell doesn't know how to kill an angel." A curt laugh.

"But I'm not an angel, Dean. Not anymore." And then he could see the crinkles around Dean's eyes in such crisp detail that it made his imagined heart stutter. Dean penetrated through Novak's shell, into Castiel with his searching gaze and Castiel imagined Dean could see semblances of grace sparkling there like star droplets.

"You are to me."

"You're just saying what I want to hear," Castiel sighed in frustration, tearing his eyes away from Dean's because looking into them was yet another falsehood. As true as they seemed, they would never be authentic. The mind always failed to perceive all the small, astounding aspects of a human being. And even Castiel's botched it, never fully grasping the essence of Dean. If he'd counted right, this Dean was missing two freckles just to the side of each eye.

"Duh, but sometimes what you want to hear and what I say and do are the same thing. You just don't get it sometimes. Take it from your subconscious, dude."

"Dean?" His voice was fervent, desperate as he grasped at the hand he'd thought was holding his. When he looked down, there was nothing. Dean's hands were at his sides. When he looked up, the star was glowing brighter. The larger and livelier it grew, the more it dawned on Castiel that it wasn't exactly a star.

"Yeah?" Dean whispered, sounding drained, far away. When Castiel peeked over, he saw that Dean's eyes were falling closed. But there was a playful, secretive smile on his face that managed to sooth the storm in Castiel's gut, if only for a moment.

"Wherever I'm going, I'm going to need you so don't you leave me," he heaved. It was getting harder to breathe, his side was burning, and that ghost of a hand on his gripped tighter as if to pull him away from the small peace he'd managed to create in his mind. There was no reaper coming for him, but he could feel an end to this approaching.

"Of course not," Dean scoffed, but his smile was warm as he turned to watch Castiel, memorizing the fallen angel as Castiel often did to Dean when he wasn't looking. "Besides, it's your brain. I'm kinda just here."

"Dean," Castiel begged, exhausted.

"I'm here, whenever you need me. But you won't, because you're going somewhere better than this piece of crap." But that didn't still Castiel. It caused a storm inside his heart, and then everything was pacing and throbbing. Dean was shuddering rapidly, the light from the star above bleaching him out, searing away the darkness that surrounded him and finally he remembered the words he'd been trying to cling to since an angel blade had buried itself inside him. Because it was blaring loud, simultaneously reaching him as the beam of burning white and the screeching pain in his side did.

"Don't you leave me, Cas."


	3. Chapter 3

Dean had always been such a liar. But this, by far, was the cruelest lie.

Castiel was instantly swallowed by a paralyzing pain that snapped like a broken rubber band, resonating throughout his body and momentarily leaving his retinas crying white. As it muted dimly and the darkness settled in, he registered a weight pinning him down that was warm and rough, itching against him. When he tried to open his eyes to see what it was, the lids whined and resisted any movement. So he resigned to staying oblivious for a while longer, hoping that if he tried to dismiss the agony and the reality of his situation that it would become white noise to him. It ebbed in and out, and past the sound of his own hesitant breathing, he heard a low, peculiar rumble. Not a voice, screaming or crying as he would expect if this was Hell. There was neither an excruciating heat nor frost; just pain and the sensation of being locked in place. The soft warmth still enveloped his hand; a small consolidation prize from the universe for his bad luck.

So, this was it. The final launch into wherever he was to remain, no more mind games in death's waiting room. This death was dark, even beyond the blanket of his eyelids; rather, no light was strong enough to pierce through to his shielded eyes. This death was mortal; he felt his arms and legs somewhere further down the flat layout of his body and they tingled and jolted with random pains that only human joints could hostilely offer. And the air was lukewarm, smelled of dust and absence. And he wondered if God stored fallen angels in death's attic, like broken toys.

Something shifted; he heard and felt a rustle of that itchy material that wrapped him. There was a falter in the rumbling, in place of it a grumble that sounded too familiar and too attached to the overbearing bulk that had been on his legs and part of his chest that Castiel knew something was not right about this- more offsetting than, well, being dead.

He willed his eyes open, and was gratified with a small sliver of vision. It was fuzzy, but there, and slowly he began to make out distinctions: a crack in a ceiling overhead, there was in fact a ceiling, lower some crowning, walls, a meekly lit lamp. He continued the task of moving his strained eyes until he got a full picture in front of him.

Castiel was in a room, a room he felt he must have seen before. It was old, worn wallpaper with grime-ridden dressers lined against it, and poles jutting out from either side of his feet that registered somewhere in his mind as foot posts of a bed. And his body, his human body was in this bed, the fabric of an old blanket covering his legs and bare chest, only wrapped slightly by a bandage he felt beneath the sheets.

Before he could really swallow that information down, he felt a constriction around his hand and the warmth grew tenfold. If he focused diligently enough, Castiel could make out different grooves upon his fingers and recognize rough callouses.

The rumbling was back.

"_I'm here, whenever you need me. But you won't, because you're going somewhere better than this piece of crap."_

Heart reeling, an overpowering dizziness clogging up all of his senses, Castiel mustered the courage to turn his head towards the rumbling being because it was finally coming back to him: the stuffy atmosphere of an old man's house, too fed up to clean or care about the cracks in his walls, the rock hard beds that were never used because everyone preferred the couch, the creak of a weary wooden chair, the strange low, grumpy breathing of a man who was asleep, and uncomfortable from napping somewhere besides a bed, and the texture akin to a worn baseball glove against Castiel's hand, large and overwhelmingly secure but gentle as if not to break porcelain.

And there he was, in as pristine a condition as he could be found in with a bandage on his forehead. Sprawled haphazardly in a chair beside Castiel's bed, Dean was fast asleep. His lashes were flush against the small specks that sprinkled about his cheeks and rose in a wave across his nose to the other side. Mouth slack, Castiel could hear the small whistle of air being pulled between his lips, the raspy aftermath as he breathed out. There were crevices in his chin as it bent down against his rising and falling chest, and his body was crumpled with one arm extended towards the bed. Castiel followed the road of forearm down to the hand, where it wound possessively around his.

Through that excruciating and real pain that reminded him of the stab he'd absorbed, Castiel felt a swelling balloon of exhilaration in his chest that threatened to lift him clear off the bed. Because this was too true to form; the cranky pain, the suffocating happiness, bloating relief, sting of some kind of liquid in his eyes that wasn't blood – it was all too tangible to be death. Or so he hoped as he ordered his fingers to move, as discreetly as possible, to curl over his beacon; over the hand that had pulled him back up onto solid ground.

"And sleeping beauty is awake," scratchy with sleep but clear as a bell that reverberated throughout Castiel's veins. He tried not to rejoice too quickly, too noticeably, and the nerves bouncing inside of him almost scattered any words he might have been ready to say as he glanced back to Dean's face and saw those vivid green, live and real eyes on him. They were sharp, filled with richness, so layered with thought that Castiel gave up any hope to decode them.

"And so are you," Castiel wrangled through his chords, only to hear a croaking frog at the end of it. A small lift of Dean's lips, and the way it fell half-baked on his face made Castiel's groaning stomach lurch at the memory of Michael wearing Dean's skin.

There was a loud groan of wood, and then Dean was leaning in towards the bed, scooting the chair closer than it already was until his knees were pressing into the mattress. And when Castiel caught his eye, he saw raw worry in them, and though he hated the idea of Dean being plagued with that feeling he knew then that this wasn't just another Archangel's game.

"You're white as a sheet, you feelin' okay?"

He tried to laugh, only to kick start a frenzy of warnings in his abdomen. "Dean, I shouldn't even be alive, so I don't think it matters if I feel 'okay'."

"Hey, smart ass, that's exactly why it matters, 'cause," Dean cleared his throat, his lashes flickering with nervousness as he peered away momentarily, "'cause, you know, what with Heaven putting you on the no fly list... I didn't know if you were coming back this time."

"Dean," it was bliss being able to say that again, really say it, and feel the breath of life that pooled into that one word, one name, the only one he ever needed to say.

"It's just I don't need one of those stupid chicken shit goodbyes and then another round of you keeling over, alright? So tell me the truth, are you feeling okay?"

The balloon that had taken residence in his chest was pressing against his ribcage, making it hard for his lungs to work right.

"I feel human, like a human that got stabbed in the intestines and still lived to tell the tale. My body isn't very pleased, but I'm okay. It's just a question of _how_ I'm okay," Castiel clarified, eying Dean as the man grew fidgety, rubbed the back of his neck with his left hand, instead of the one wrapped up in Castiel's.

"That's the thing. I don't know if I was all there when it happened, but I could've sworn you'd saved up some grace for a rainy day. After you passed out, there was a glow from the gash and though it didn't heal it entirely, you stopped bleeding real fast."

"How long was I out then?" Castiel prodded through the sandpaper in his throat.

Dean frowned, and the blood in Castiel's fingers jolted in surprise as a hand constricted around them on impulse.

"A solid 48 hours, I think," he finally replied, trying a smile on for wear. It didn't fit right. "Slept like a baby."

Castiel knew that was a good thing. Humans needed rest to recover, he'd done that at the hospital, but it was just that. He was completely human, utterly, no doubt about it.

"So that's it, then. I used up the last of my grace, and now I'm stuck like this," Castiel grumbled haggardly, a kneejerk complaint from finding out there had been an inkling of a chance, and in an instant the grip on his hand loosened.

"What the hell is so bad about being human?" Dean shot, his face churning heated blood beneath the surface, flaring around his freckles. Castiel bit his lip, clutched against the receding hand, urged without words for Dean not to be angry. Not now that he was here, and knowing it wasn't a cruel dream. But the hunter was already narrowing in on their hands, as if he'd only just realized he'd been holding on, and Castiel could feel a resolve building inside the man but he couldn't see deep enough to know what it was.

"Being human isn't bad," he sighed, to Dean's ridiculing glare. Castiel shut his eyes against the sight, only to be greeted with the shadows of his nightmare. Opening them once more, he looked to the ceiling for guidance. "I'm just bad at being human."

"Why, because you're not used to the idea of dying, or having to heal your ass the hard way, having to feel small, being 'stuck' here?" And his hand was gone, a cold bitterness taking its place.

"Dean that is not what I meant and you know it. Please, you don't understand-"

"Because I'm human and too stupid?" He croaked out, his voice rusty with mixed emotions.

"Dean," Castiel barked hoarsely. "What I'm not 'used to' is giving up my identity. I can never return to my true form. I'm this thing that's been shoved inside a body that isn't my own and never was. I've consumed an actual human by being here, I've overridden them and claimed this as me when it isn't. You don't understand because this is all you've ever seen. I've been stripped bare and boxed up, and I," he heaved. "I'm trying, Dean. It's just difficult for me to accept that this is me now and I chose that, but it's just difficult and I'm tired, and I just need time."

In the silence that followed, Castiel fell further into the bed, despite its concrete form, and everything gave him a headache. This wasn't his most ideal return to the world.

"What do you mean 'chose'?" came the slow, tight response.

Castiel faltered, caught Dean's hard stare, tried not to scream in frustration. "It's just that, I knew the consequen-"

"Cas, what the hell do you mean, you 'chose' this?"

"... I was given an ultimatum and I chose humanity."

"What was the ultimatum," Dean grit out, and for once he wished Michael had been right about Dean's intelligence. But he was sharp, and Castiel worried how far he could lie. So, he tried to tell small truths.

"I had the choice to serve Michael, or serve no one. I chose no one."

"He invited you to the apocalypse party," Dean supplemented.

"You could say that, yes." But Dean was still studying Castiel's calculated moves, knew them well enough and knew Michael well enough not to bite just yet.

"I don't think he'd be so nice as to let you choose angel or human, Cas."

"He might have mentioned dying, but I presume he didn't know I wasn't fully drained."

He could see each word clicking into place in Dean's mind, saw the levels of aggression and anxiety rise inside him like mercury in a thermometer, imagined a pair of rustling wings behind him, didn't need to imagine the blood rushing to Dean's head.

"You're a fucking idiot, you know that?" He seethed, jumping up from his chair as Castiel's heart jumped from his chest to follow him.

"Dean, all this time you told me to choose my path, and I did. I thought you would be pleased," he nearly begged. And it was last night, last night all over again. And Castiel wondered if he closed his eyes, would his Dean be waiting there as he said he would.

"You could've-" Dean took a ragged breath, lowered his voice. "You could've died, Cas. That's not a smart path to be running towards."

"But it would be my own. And I wouldn't desert you. For all the leaving you think I've done, I would never desert you."

Dean's humorless, dry laugh emptied the air of oxygen. He shook his head, paced about the room, his hand leaving red marks around the nape of his neck. "Death is a pretty permanent check out." When those eyes met his again, Castiel could see an emptiness that scared him more than Dean's anger did.

"But I would have died by your side," he tried again. "He would have me abandon you and Sam, keep you two from stopping the apocalypse. I couldn't do that, I couldn't choose that."

"You sound like you didn't have a choice, after all," was Dean's predictable rebuttal.

"It was just a very obvious one, Dean. And a part of me, still tied here to you, tried to tell me I wasn't going to die. I had to trust that, even if only in the smallest degree. I had to." Dean was moving towards the door, shaking his head the way he did when it was filled with too many thoughts, too many things he didn't want to feel or know and Castiel couldn't let him just leave. Not when that's all they ever did to each other. He tried to lift himself on the bed, poked and prodded the limits of his strength, and recoiled at how little control over his body he had anymore. He let out a grunt as pain shot up from his midsection.

He didn't even hear Dean rush to his side, but he felt the heavenly burn of firm hands on his bare shoulders, steadying him, pushing back against more pillows that let him sit up just enough to feel less impotent. But that wasn't what made his heart calm, stutter, or his body forget the ebbing sting of mending flesh. He could see every finite sunspot beneath Dean's eyes, frozen on his own, as if they had the sun directly behind them, illuminating each one and leaving that skin bright red with pools of heat. He could feel that breath that was never fully washed clean of bittersweet beer, that gave to him the taste and warmth of sunlight and smoke, that made him lean in, curious as to whether lips could taste like a summer day too. He moved just enough to break everything.

Dean cleared his throat and rocked back on his heels, his body instantly just far enough away for Castiel to feel a void. Dean rubbed his chin again, a nervous twitch to his lip.

"I need to go, Sam's sleepin' on the couch so he'd kill me if I didn't actually use the extra bedroom," he twisted out, clearing his throat again as he turned to leave but Castiel was growing bolder, could feel his heart reaching out, and his hand snatched Dean's wrist, held him in place.

"Please don't. I don't want to fight with you, and I know you were here for me. Can you be here for me now?"

"Cas," Dean sighed, his voice stuttering. "Look, I'm sorry about the other night. I really am, and I'm trying not to do this. I don't know how else to stop, but to walk out until I can clear my head," he muttered.

"I don't want you to clear your head, unless you clear it by me."

Dean's hand writhed within Castiel's grip, and he could hear Dean's ragged breath, attach it to the speeding pulse beneath his fingertips.

"Why are you doing this now, huh?"

"I've fallen for you," Castiel heard himself say, covered the words as a reminder of all he'd given up for Dean but if he listened, if Dean listened he could hear everything Castiel was willing to give to him.

Briefly, Dean froze, his eyes scouring Castiel's for a moment and finding too much intensity, too many promises. He tore them away, looked to the door instead.

"And that was the dumbest decision you've ever made." Dean scoffed, nerve-ridden and a complete flight risk. Yet, if he tugged enough, Castiel was sure Dean would be able to release himself. Something was holding him back, and it allowed Castiel to let go of his worries.

"But it was still my decision. So what's yours?"

Dean jerked his hand free, but didn't move from Castiel's side. He seemed stuck, his eyebrows scrunched together to make a peculiar frown at his nose ridge. He was red in the face, more bashful than Castiel had ever seen him, and it secretly delighted him.

"But why, why would you give all that up. You said yourself that it's hard, that you miss it, so why?" Dean huffed, looking anywhere but at Castiel, because they both knew all the answers were written on his face.

"Dean, of course I'm going to miss my old life. If someone changed you into something else, gave you a new identity, you would miss your old life too. But, that doesn't mean you couldn't move on. I'm trying to move on; I've chosen to move on as hard as it may be because this is my home now. You're my family. And, I know I'm not what I used to be because of my choices, and I know that I've pretty much rendered myself useless to you because... I can't... I'm bedridden on my first day," Castiel admitted with a heavy sigh, his arm recoiling back to his side. "But, it's my choice and I'm okay with it. I just want to know that you are, too."

And then Dean's eyes were fixed on him, green seas swirling with thoughts and processing words. He opened his mouth, shut it tight, his lips pursed and burning pink. He began to pace, shook his head again and Castiel grew dizzy just looking at him.

"You think that just because you gotta walk on your own feet instead of flapping and zapping around that you're useless? Look, I know I'm not the best at saying stuff and I end up yelling, but... what I said that night. I didn't mean it, I was just so angry because I don't seem to have any control over anything anymore and I thought you'd be on my side. You're not useless, Cas. You're not."

He was teetering there, standing at the foot of the bed, his teeth clenched and his throat bright with agitation. And Castiel knew what Dean meant, but he wanted to hear it. He was selfish, and he wanted so badly to hear it. So he lied, like Dean had always told him to do.

"I don't understand. What point do I serve, Dean, if not as celestial guidance? You only ever call on me when you can't manage something on your own, or need information I'm keen to. Now that I'm human, I'm just an extra limb. So tell me, Dean. How is it that I'm not useless?"

Dean let out a nervous laugh, the corners of his mouth moving up as if he might have detected Castiel's angle. He took in a deep breath, and looked to Castiel, his eyes almost pleading for help as they always did. And he was itching for the door, but this was a tug of war that Castiel was determined to win.

"You can leave, but know that when you leave that it's you walking away and not me. I came back for you, Dean. I will always come back for you."

And Dean was choking on those words, and Castiel was just waiting, his sides cringing and humming and waiting, always waiting.

"I'm not... I'm not good with saying stuff, Cas," he struggled to get out, his Adam's apple pulsing up and down.

"Then show me."

There was a silence, the kind of silence that lasted a lifetime, but held itself in a single breath. In that breath, Castiel regretted opening his mouth. He'd been too eager, too sure that if Dean didn't have to say anything, he'd just do. Instead, Dean looked down; his long lashes and chest wavered like his resolve. And he was quiet, too quiet, scouring the ground for answers only he could give himself and Castiel's confidence was slipping with each moment he allowed Dean to search for those answers.

"Okay," it was discreet, and Dean looked to be talking to himself. "Okay."

And then there it was, the spread of wings across his face. They were unsure, fluttering with nerves as his smile grew and faded like he was thinking of something wonderful and, God, Castiel wanted to know, he wanted to know every reason behind every smile. But before he could ask this time, Dean was there, all there. He was towering above him, and yet he felt so small when Castiel's fervent hands reached up to cup his face just as it came down and lips met lips.

He was brushing against a rain cloud, soft and moist and brewing a storm within him. It made Castiel thirsty, and he pressed against those lips. Thunder rolled within Dean's throat, vibrated against those lips. A tongue slipped forth to moisten Castiel's desert skin, slipped between the cracks and sparked lightning inside Castiel's mouth, drowned him in waves of longing that he couldn't swim against. And that lightning was crashing against his nerves, exciting them, driving them nuts, filling him with a buzzing light that felt like a phantom limb, like a phantom grace.

And he felt too human, too unable to withstand all that light because it was Dean, and Dean was kissing him and he was kissing Dean.

So when those clouds receded and Dean was grasping at Castiel's hair like he was grasping at straws with a disoriented look on his face, there was a gusty sigh of relief and exquisite peace for Castiel. He closed his eyes, no longer plagued with flashes of the middle ground between Heaven and Hell, and bathed in the heated rain of Dean's breath against his flushed cheeks.

His fingertips roamed over delicate cheekbones, jawline, the warm lower lip that he pictured bruised red. He knew this landscape better than he knew Heaven and Earth and Hell, and he could map it without eyes and without words, just touch. He'd never been able to before, but here it was, here Dean was, and he was leaning into Castiel's finger pads, his knees crumpling on the bed beside Castiel. There was no hesitance because Dean wasn't telling him to mind "personal space, Cas", because Dean always broke that rule and now it was Castiel's turn. It was both of their turns, and they were more than eager to lean closer, break every barrier because with the world falling apart around them, who the hell needed walls anymore.

The bed creaked under the added pressure, threatened to break too as Dean's legs inched further onto the bed. One snuck over Castiel's legs, and Dean was hovering over him, straddling him and careful not to press too much weight onto his midsection even though Castiel couldn't give a damn about the pain.

Dean's shadow swallowed him whole as he leaned forward, rushed to put his mouth to Castiel's again, but there was so much more to Dean that Castiel had yet to savor, had never been allowed to test. He ducked those lips, dove into the dip in Dean's neck, followed the bloodline there, pressed adoring kisses that made the hunter suck in his breath. Castiel could feel the quiver of his veins, of his soul, and knew where to press, knew where to touch from two years of observation and Dean was just trying to keep up.

The blanket slipped off Castiel's chest, left it bare and Dean's hands, eager to be of use, covered him with flesh instead. It stung like flecks of fire against his skin, scorching and leaving him craving all over again, testing how Dean's sunlit skin tasted on his tongue, in his mouth, and he'd never experienced this kind of hunger before. Angels couldn't hunger, but humans could, and Castiel was starving more than he had when he'd first woken up mortal. That muffled part of him that had been clawing up his chest all these days and years was finally making itself known, telling him where to go, what to do, how to do it.

And yet when Dean's hands graced over Castiel's belt buckle, he was rendered lame, only able to say, "Dean," the only way he knew how: desperately, devotedly, "Dean, Dean, Dean".

A spasm of confused delight and pain trailed down his spine as one of Dean's hands lightly touched the bandage on his side. They traced the outside of it, little sun kisses of apology. And Castiel was memorized when he looked and could see every small vulnerability in his hunter's green eyes as they wandered. Dean bit his bottom lip, crinkled his eyebrows.

"Everything you've done for me, Cas. After everything you've done for me, you should know that I need you. That's never gonna change," he breathed out, his eyes squeezed shut so tight Castiel could see every fine eyelash, like he was trying to read off the words that were running around inside his head before they could scatter away. When they opened, he was pinned down once more by that steady gaze so glorious he wondered how Dean could ever need him. But he did, and Castiel needed him just the same. Angel or no angel, he needed this Winchester and the rope that tied them went both ways.

But they didn't need to talk about that right now.

He rose up to his elbows, fought the nagging grouch that was his side, and his lips struck home on those clouds, soft and pliant against his. "Good," was all he had to say before those lingering hands finally took their aim, manhandling his pants until they were being shoved down and off of him. This was his body now, and it was raw and glowing beneath Dean and his scanning eyes. And Dean was still incredibly and infuriatingly clothed.

Reaching up, he pulled Dean down with him, the bed mumbling all the way. Dean was smiling against his shoulder blade, laughed at Castiel's eagerness, felt the tug of equally eager hands on his shirt and lifted himself up enough for Castiel to strip it off.

It didn't take long for pants to follow.

When every barrier was finally torn out of the way, Castiel could finally fully see Dean, like he was seeing the true form beneath the skin. He wasn't an angel. Dean was something beyond that, enough so that he could pull down an angel and chain it to him, make it devout only to him, make it want to abandon its wings because this was better than flying. He was falling, all over again, into something so magnificent it shrouded grace in shadow. And it felt like heaven, real heaven, the kind that sparked fire in his heart and sprouted buds of light in his skin.

His hand trailed up the clenched muscles of Dean's abdomen, scoured the mountain of his chest though his eyes were on his mark that lay as a sign of possession and devotion on Dean's shoulder. Hi hand weaved its way towards it, covered it snuggly, felt the shiver resonate in Dean as he did so. He clutched it, pulled Dean down, pressed their burning bodies together. He boldly caught that jutting bottom lip with his teeth, savored the urgency with which Dean kissed him as his other hand snuck between them, grazed the tensed penis that rubbed pleadingly against his own, rubbed it to the rhythm of Dean's moans.

Castiel was mapping every nerve ending, every inch of skin, knew when he'd done good if Dean hissed or jerked, bit against Castiel's tongue just through sheer instinct. Apparently, he wasn't "supposed to know how to do that. Angels don't know how to do that." Something to that effect.

But of course he did. "I know the mechanics well enough, Dean," he managed to say between fervent kisses. It was just a matter of trying them out, of being able to enjoy the bliss only touch could create, the need not being touched fueled. His body was fighting against itself, his hips arching up at the faintest sound Dean made, the briefest shaking touch as he urged him towards release. Even the way Dean's hair stuck in random disarray on his head, or the angle of his opened mouth, quivering chin, the way the shadows played on his eyes and cheekbones, they all drove that rush inside Castiel, the need to keep touching him and the savage yearning for Dean to touch him back.

He was panting too, his head against Dean's as his hand worked Dean's every sensitive nerve ending until, body tensed and searing hot, Dean let out a cry that had been building up along with his orgasm. And Castiel watched him, cherishing the rash of red that crept up from Dean's chest until it tapped on those delicate cheekbones and painted him with the vulnerability and beauty of the world. And the part of Castiel that still clung to the power of angels wanted so badly to tear Dean apart, get inside and see everything that he couldn't see from out here, to see his soul and take it in his hands and steal it away.

But as Dean stirred, his hand grabbing onto Castiel's and guiding it through the white cum that still pulsed out of Dean until their hands were moving around and behind Dean to land on the soft tissue of his bottom, Castiel knew this was more than enough to satisfy him.

Still, this was as far as his knowledge of intercourse went and when Dean's shaky guidance led him further and to the hidden entrance, Castiel's eyes jolted wide with sudden anxiety.

"Dean," his breath rattled, but Dean's smile was soothing as it fell onto Castiel's lips and silenced him.

"Hey, I got you." It didn't need saying. He always knew. Dean always got him, always had him.

It was strange and wonderful, venturing inside Dean with his fingers and finding out every little spot there too. It was a never ending journey with constant rewards along the way, and every turn made Dean's arms tense, his jaw clench and his hands tighten on Castiel's shoulders.

At some point, Dean had shifted and Castiel's erection wound taut, pulling at his insides, as it sunk between the cheeks. Dean's hand was there again, grabbing both of Castiel's and placing them on welcoming hips. Both of them were breathing heavy, and Castiel swore his heart was going to leap out of his chest as Dean eased down, slowly filling himself up and surrounding Castiel in heat and comfort and walls of tight desire.

When movement was added into the equation, Castiel didn't know how to absorb the shock, the feeling of drowning in his own ecstasy. Ecstasy, he didn't even think himself capable of that. But Dean always challenged every assumption Castiel could ever make, and it didn't stop when they got in bed.

He clutched at Dean, afraid that maybe this was all just a dream after all- a very tangible, desirable dream. He heard Dean suck in a breath, was overwhelmed as he began to move a little faster above Castiel, was pliant as Dean's forceful arms pushed him down against the bed. Dean was forgetting to be careful about the part of Castiel's body that was still trying to make itself better, and yet the pain there just filled in any gaps there may have been in Castiel's pleasure.

But he hated the space between them.

His hands left Dean's hips, slithering up his sides, down his arms, to Dean's hands where they lay on Castiel's shoulders for support. He held them tight, pulled them further up to the pillows, the headboard, slowly lowering Dean until he was laying skin tight around and over him with sweat slippery and smooth between them. Their lips found each other fast and hard, their tongues clashing and stroking and tasting. And one of Dean's hands strayed from their interlocked fingers, ventured into Castiel's hair and tugged as he started to rock faster.

And every tight grind into his pelvis sent Castiel's body reeling and thrusting up with more and more confidence, with more and more want for that soft scorching sensation of being inside Dean gave him like, being wrapped in velvet. He was clasping at the ridges of Dean's muscular back, digging in nails, stroking where he dug too deep, mapping out every sensitive spot that made Dean choke back a smile, a yelp, a croon. He was murmuring Dean's name against lips, against cheekbone and jawline and burning skin like a mantra.

"Dean, _Dean_." Pleading, demanding, engraving into memory, Castiel breathed it out with each frustrated, needing thrust to meet Dean's own moans and subtle cries as experience taught Castiel where his prostate was, and when and how to hit it to make those musical sounds, make Dean shiver with pleasure only Castiel could give.

But there were words they refused to say in the small spaces between their bodies, their mouths when they weren't preoccupied with devouring each other, either out of fear or stubborn resolve to stay in this middle ground of loving but never saying.

And Castiel reassured himself he was okay with this, because this was enough. Being with Dean, inside of him and holding him and being able to touch him when he couldn't before was so much more than he'd ever thought himself capable of having.

So when it all came boiling down and rushing out of him, making him cry out into Dean's receiving mouth, he felt so incredibly whole in his humanity and he was happy. He rejoiced in the heaven Dean's arms allowed as they wrapped around him, and Dean's body molded into Castiel's side like two halves of one soul stitching itself back together.

"I guess being human isn't that bad after all," Castiel sighed jokingly, a wide grin sprawling over his face, almost large enough to challenge Dean's radiance.

But Castiel's smile dwindled when he caught Dean's eye, saw how the exhaustion allowed him a glimpse into the deeper longing Dean tried to hide behind gruff and loud words.

Then Dean blinked, gave a light laugh and pressed a surprisingly chaste kiss on Castiel.

"You idiot, you've always been human in all the ways that counted."

Castiel turned on his good side, faced Dean and delighted silently when his companion scooted closer. "I'm starting to understand that now," he murmured groggily as an arm warmly wrapped around him, diligent but fierce in its promise not to leave.

"Good," Dean yawned, gripping tighter around his fallen angel and Castiel couldn't help but smile like a foolish child.

As Dean's eyes slowly flickered closed, Castiel watched him with a sense of utter security. His brothers and sisters had always described falling as the death of an angel, painful and permanent in its sentence to the hell that awaited the fallen, but for Castiel it had spawned a rebirth into a new life that was so foreign but so very desired. It was still scary, the more he thought of his and Dean's mortality, the coming trials and he could feel the fear of lose coiling in his gut, in his human heart and lungs as they leapt into his throat as if in a downward spiral. But he didn't feel the urge to fight it or flap his absent wings anymore. Because, he was falling into something much more miraculous and divine than anything he could have imagined. He fell knowing that a pair of welcoming, freckled arms waited down below to catch him, and hold him as they did now.

And in knowing that, he fell, for the last time that night, into a blissful sleep.

A/N: (And then Sam walks in) Hehe, please leave comments if you can, I'd love to know what you thought about it since this is my first destiel/slash fanfiction and the entire time I was paranoid as to how it went. Thanks for reading!


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